Quote

The very greatest things - great thoughts, discoveries, inventions - have usually been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow, and at length established with difficulty.

Samuel Smiles

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Samuel Smiles
Age: 91 †
Born: 1812
Born: December 23
Died: 1904
Died: April 16
Author
Biographer
Journalist
Philosopher
Writer
Haddington
East Lothian
Thoughts
Established
Greatest
Length
Often
Invention
Great
Adversity
Pondered
Things
Difficulty
Nurtured
Discovery
Inventions
Sorrow
Discoveries
Usually
Hardship

More quotes by Samuel Smiles

Image
Sympathy is the golden key that unlocks the hearts of others.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Those who aren't making mistakes probably aren't making anything.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Cecil's dispatch of business was extraordinary, his maxim being, The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.
Samuel Smiles
Image
The egotist is next door to a fanatic.
Samuel Smiles
Image
If character be irrecoverably lost, then indeed there will be nothing left worth saving.
Samuel Smiles
Image
It is possible that the scrupulously honest man may not grow rich so fast as the unscrupulous and dishonest one but the success will be of a truer kind, earned without fraud or injustice. And even though a man should for a time be unsuccessful, still he must be honest: better lose all and save character. For character is itself a fortune. . . .
Samuel Smiles
Image
Genius, without work, is certainly a dumb oracle, and it is unquestionably true that the men of the highest genius have invariably been found to be amongst the most plodding, hard-working, and intent men -- their chief characteristic apparently consisting simply in their power of laboring more intensely and effectively than others.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Labor is still, and ever will be, the inevitable price set upon everything which is valuable.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Commit a child to the care of a worthless, ignorant woman, and no culture in after-life will remedy the evil you have done.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Cheerfulness is also an excellent wearing quality. It has been called the bright weather of the heart.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Success treads on the heels of every right effort and though it is possible to overestimate success to the extent of almost deifying it, as is sometimes done, still in any worthy pursuit it is meritorious.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.
Samuel Smiles
Image
The tiniest bits of opinion sown in the minds of children in private life afterwards issue forth to the world, and become its public opinion for nations are gathered out of nurseries.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Nothing is more common than energy in money-making, quite independent of any higher object than its accumulation. A man who devotes himself to this pursuit, body and soul, can scarcely fail to become rich. Very little brains will do spend less than you earn add guinea to guinea scrape and save and the pile of gold will gradually rise.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Courage is by no means incompatible with tenderness. On the contrary, gentleness and tenderness have been found to characterize the men, no less than the women, who have done the most courageous deeds.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Make good thy standing place, and move the world.
Samuel Smiles
Image
No good thing is ever lost. Nothing dies, not even life which gives up one form only to resume another. No good action, no good example dies. It lives forever in our race. While the frame moulders and disappears, the deed leaves an indelible stamp, and molds the very thought and will of future generations.
Samuel Smiles
Image
The highest culture is not obtained from the teacher when at school or college, so much as by our ever diligent self-education when we become men.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Life will always be to a large extent what we ourselves make it.
Samuel Smiles
Image
Energy of will may be defined to be the very central power of character in a man.
Samuel Smiles